Despite dangers, teens admit to cellphone use while driving

Paresh Jha

Updated 11:11 pm, Saturday, June 9, 2012

More than half of teen drivers surveyed by state health officials admitted they talk or text on their phone while behind the wheel.

The 2011 Connecticut School Health Survey administered to more than 6,000 high school and middle school students across the state found that 53 percent of those surveyed said they talked on a cellphone while driving at least once in the month before taking the survey.

The annual survey results come on the heels of the arrest of a New Canaan teenage driver in May who authorities said was distracted by her handheld cell phone when she struck and killed a jogger.

Kenneth Dorsey, 44, was on a morning jog and training for a marathon on March 24 when he was fatally struck by the SUV the girl was driving, according to his father, Leo Dorsey.

The New Canaan girl, whom police are not naming because of her age, was charged with negligent homicide with a motor vehicle, using a handheld telephone under age 18 while driving and failure to drive in the proper lane.

Police declined to say what she was doing on the phone, only that they found evidence she was using the keypad before Kenneth Dorsey was hit on a busy street.

The survey also found that 10 percent of high school students said they rarely or never wore a seat belt as a passenger and about one out of every 10 high school seniors reported drinking alcohol and driving in the month before the survey.

About one in four said they had recently been a passenger of someone who had been drinking alcohol.

State health officials report that motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens.

Cellphone usage is becoming an increasing concern for both parents and driving instructors. Some parents said they are delaying when they are allowing their children to get licenses and driving schools said they are focusing on the issue of distracted driving during lessons.

Studies show that while teens know the dangers they end up doing it anyway. The Consumer Reports National Research Center just released survey results after questioning drivers ages 16 through 21 around the world.

"Almost half of the respondents said they had talked on a handheld phone while driving in the previous 30 days. Close to 30 percent said they had texted in that time. And some had operated smartphone apps (8 percent) or used email or social media (7 percent) while behind the wheel," the report stated.

"Yet almost all of them considered texting, using smart-phone apps, or accessing the Internet to be dangerous while driving; about 80 percent thought it was very dangerous," according to the report. "Also, 63 percent of those surveyed saw talking on a handheld phone while driving as dangerous."

The survey also revealed that kids pay very close attention to what their parents do while driving.

Forty-eight percent said they saw their parents talking on the phone while driving and 15 percent said they saw them texting.

A new survey on cellphone distraction while driving finds that adult motorists are just as likely as teens to text behind the wheel, and even more likely to talk on their cellphones.

One in four American adults said they have texted while driving and 61 percent of adults say they have talked on their cell phones while they were behind the wheel, according to a 2010 survey for the Pew Internet Research Center's Internet & American Life Project.

More than two-thirds of adult respondents in a 2009 AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety poll said they had talked on a cellphone and 21 percent said they had texted or emailed while driving in the previous month.